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The National Football League has filed a lawsuit to block single-game betting on NFL games in Delaware, a move that state House Majority Leader Peter Schwartzkopf called "blatant hypocrisy." Other sports leagues have joined the lawsuit, which also seeks to prevent betting on professional baseball, basketball and hockey games. Schwartzkopf notes in a two-page letter to the NFL's commissioner that the league has contracts with television networks that promote gambling on their Web sites.

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The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Delaware's appeal to expand sports betting beyond professional football in the state. Delaware now offers multi-game bets on National Football League games but is prohibited from offering single-game wagers allowed in Las Vegas.

The state of Delaware should take its case for single-game sports betting to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to The News Journal. The state can now offer three-team parlay betting under a grandfather clause in federal legislation. "Taking the case to the Supreme Court will be expensive, for sure, but the money that could be realized is worth the final shot," writes The News Journal.

Delaware had planned to allow single-game sports betting in the state today. However, a three-judge panel found single-game sports betting would violate provisions of a 1992 federal law and noted that because the state had only allowed NFL betting prior to 1990, an expansion of it would be "beyond the scope of the exception and therefore prohibited."

Delaware officials are working on plans for parlay betting despite a ruling this week that single-game sports betting would violate a federal ban on sports gambling. "Come next month, Delaware will have the only sports lottery east of the Mississippi," said Joe Rogalsky, a spokesman for the governor's office. "The exact form it will take is something that the State Lottery Office is working on now." State officials are also considering whether to appeal the decision.

A Delaware law legalizing sports betting may run afoul of U.S. lawmakers for expanding to single-game betting. The National Football League has challenged the Delaware law in court as a violation of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. The act prohibits sports betting, but allowed Delaware and three other states to be "grandfathered" in.